Heading into the Dragon’s lair
to the scene of their glorious win four years ago, Malaysia will once again enter the cauldron of Hanoi’s My Dinh Stadium to face Vietnam in the AFF Cup today.
Many things have changed since then with hosts Vietnam now widely considered to have the upper hand over Malaysia, going into the vital Group A clash.
As things are, Vietnam are now ranked World No 102 compared to Malaysia’s 169.
A Malaysia, without Mohamadou Sumareh against Laos in their last match, had looked limp.
The Harimau Malaya missed the punch of the tricky winger on the flanks, and head coach Tan Cheng Hoe hopes Sumareh will recover fast enough from his hamstring injury,
“Sumareh is getting better and we have more than 24 hours to assess him,” said Cheng Hoe at yesterday’s pre-match press conference.
If Sumareh does not make the cut, it looks to be toss between Syafiq Ahmad and Syazwan Zainon to fill the empty slot. Syafiq had started against Laos in central midfield.
Cheng Hoe is expected to go for a less gung-ho approach against the fancied Vietnamese side and might revert to his usual twoman defensive midfielders.
“Our players have done well to get six points thus far but it’s a tougher match against Vietnam. So we’ll need to step up our performance to get something out of the match.
“We know Vietnam are fast and play good combination football. The few key Vietnam players that we will keeping a close eye on are No 19 (Nguyen Quang Hai) and 14 (Nguyen Cong Phuong), as well as their captain who is very experienced,” added the 50-year-old coach.
On the opposite side, the 59year-old South Korean Park Hang-seo is the man tasked to lead Vietnam to their first AFF Championship glory since 2008.
Park has already guided the Vietnam side to the final of the 2018 AFC Under 23 Championship, and his current senior side are filled with players that have graduated from the Under23 side.
With the tickets to today’s match completely sold out just a few hours after the counters were opened last Sunday, expectations are running high not only in Hanoi but the whole of Vietnam.
However, Park is trying to dilute the expectations and he played down Cheng Hoe’s claim that the Golden Dragons are the clear favourites, going into the crunch match.
“From 1998 to 2013, we got three wins, two draws and two losses against Malaysia teams. So at the moment we are not overly expectant,” said Park.
“Right now, only Nguyen Huy Hung is a doubt for the match but everyone else is fit and available for selection.”
Khairul Fahmi, Syazwan Andik, Aidil Zafuan, Shahrul Saad, Syahmi Safari, Akram Mahinan, Syamer Kutty Abba, Safawi Rasid, Norshahrul Idlan Talaha, Syafiq Ahmad, Zaquan Adha.